Glorious Weakness: Discovering God in All We Lack

I began following Alia Joy on social media before I knew she had authored a memoir that would resonate with my soul and help me reconnect with clarifying experiences of my past. Early in her book, Alia Joy bathes her story with fresh perspective on why we need to own our stories because they are who we’ve come to be. She says, “Words are so simple. Just letters strung together. And yet they shift heaven and earth. They explode galaxies. They have life and death contained in each strand, graced on open palms or piled like a burden. I can’t imagine living in a world where words couldn’t speak to me and rewrite my truth …” What follows are the loves, losses, and life woven into prose that is at once raw and dramatic but without a hint of ego or self-pity. Words you wish didn’t have to be written, but they are infused into her existence. Pages you don’t want to end because the hope of her experience is so vibrant.As a reader, you will discover fibers of Alia’s truth in your own life. We are all complex individuals who can identify, at least in part, with poverty, illness, abuse, racial injustice, disability, and wondering where God is in all of it —- if he is a good God. After understanding her rejections of God and crying with her through the trauma of growing up with parents whose faith rested fully on Him, I rejoiced with her when God spoke deep into her soul and Alia turned her heart toward Him.I found myself overshadowed by her despair and broken-hearted when forced changes in her home environment pushed her further into questioning the goodness of God. I cheered her on when she latched onto a glimmer of hope when she began to discover her gifts and understand her ‘Great Calling’. Alia Joy harbors no pretense. Her mask doesn’t have to come off because she starts her story unveiled and doesn’t retreat even when discussing the cyclical days of bad to worse, being judged, cynicism, and learning to trust God when people who so easily spoke of a relationship with God had anything but godly character.I thank God for Alia Joy’s life and am grateful that in God’s providence He chose her to write this story of grace, compassion, destiny and hope – so much hope. As she said, “As Christians, our native language is Hope.” When I learned about this book, Glorious Weakness: Discovering God in All We Lack, I knew it was one I needed to buy and read. I preordered long before it was available because I wanted to be first on the list of readers.My pages are marked up in yellow crayon. I didn’t want to put the book down long enough to go find a proper highlighter. I have so many soul strengthening quotes marked for remembering. One of my favorites comes after a story she tells of when she experienced grace and the ministry of God at a time when she was desperate for a word from Him. “That night God ministered to my soul … That moment was just for me. God might disrupt my life, draw me to places of unrelenting weakness, pull from me my most vulnerable and tender parts, and then remind me that poverty of spirit is the birthplace of all grace. God is good, even in the weary and worn out places. Maybe even especially there.” #gloriousweakness #gloriousweaknessbook

Outstanding autobiography of this writer, but it is intense. She went through some horrific experiences, and while her writing is honest and intelligent, it can be tough for the tender hearted or sensitive soul to read. Kudos to this survivor who loves God profoundly, but what a book. I recommend if you want some depth. This is it.

I feel like the words I try to say about this book will just diminish the scope of what it is. But here’s for trying.Sickness, poverty, depression, bipolar disorder, and more sickness piled onto more, more, more of less than expected life circumstances; Alia Joy has been through a lot more than many of us.This book is powerful not only because of her life stories, but because of the way she reframes her life stories to reflect a bigger picture of God and challenge our own assumptions about weakness in general, our own weakness, and those we might consider weak among us.This book is life, and hope in life.I really appreciated Alia Joy’s honesty and straightforwardness about poverty, growing up poor, coming to terms with her faith, and battling through illness, asthma, and mental health diagnosis and the stigma attached with all of it. Her writing is vivid, clear, and sometimes humorous as she shows us all the ways God is there for us in our weakness and how weakness is actually a strength.“My deficiency was the strongest thing about me because God was fully present in my lack.” (Joy p. 169)We are not all weak in the same ways, but we are all weak in many ways. Alia Joy has given words and hope to the way our hardships, weaknesses, and failings can spring up new life in us instead of death. She tells about a Jesus changed way of thinking, not a Jesus-fix-it way.“I had no idea that the cross God would call me to carry was a life of ordinary faithfulness. That I would instead be tasked with recognizing the poverty in myself and bearing witness to the goodness of God in a life I never wanted.” (Joy p. 33)Alia Joy gives us hope for the ways weakness is a ministry. She challenges us to faith in a God who is there in the midst of our struggle, instead of faith captivated by our ability to serve God before, after, or in spite of struggle.It made me feel all the feels. Underline on every page. And say ‘yes to this’ again and again.I think this book is actually for everyone.

This book. It speaks to the deepest, most broken parts of me. Alia Joy is a real life companion on this real life journey. She’s not Little Mary Sunshine spouting Christian platitudes. She’s doing the hard work of clinging to Hope in her weakness and desperation.She is real and raw and honest and so beautifully vulnerable throughout these pages. Like a friend reaching out—not one with the answers to the hard things we all go through, but a sojourner—walking each painful step alongside us, discovering the grace that allows us to keep walking. The timing of this book has been profound as I was mid-way through cancer treatment when I received an advance copy from the publisher, at no cost to me.She writes, “I thought a call meant to do something for God, so I determined I would fully live the call of God on my life. But I never imagined that the call for the last 20 years would be to stay and walk faithfully with God while struggling with mental illness, unable to be involved in “ministry.” I didn’t know my ministry would be words written from hospital beds or in recovery. That I’d shake out my story with trembling hands and I’d testify to a God who meets me here when I haven’t a single thing to offer....It’s being honest and vulnerable and open to the work of God in small and tender places....It’s easy to resent our own limitations and to look around and think everyone else got a bigger slice of pie, a bigger payoff, a better purpose than bearing witness to God’s goodness in the middle of a life of lack....So often when the world feels like the harshest truth we go quiet. We don’t want to admit we went down with the ship. We don’t want to confess we are clinging to debris afloat in a sea of nothing but our losses... but we are a beacon of hope for others who’ve lost their way. We share our stories and are vulnerable not because we wish to make an exhibition of our failures...[instead we confess] the places where we doubt, where we’re not sure God’s going to show up—the places we worry will always remain too broken, too human...admitting that in our own we are lacking, desperate and in need.”If you are looking for a bit of Hope in a place of lack, there are words here for you.

Very honest book of thoughts on the church, mental illness and need for community . Points us to follow after the example of the Lord .

This book was all I hoped it would be. Alia's beautiful writing style combined with scriptural truths made for a lovely and helpful read. As someone who struggles with the desire to be self-sufficient, this was an important reminder of my need for God and others. I constantly need the reminder that in the Kingdom of God, our weaknesses allow God to show His strength. And that is exactly where I need to be - aware of my weakness so that God can work on my behalf. I highly recommend this book to anyone, because we are all weak. And we all need the reminder that our weakness is glorious when it drives us back to God.

Poignant and powerful. Alia's gorgeous writing calls the reader to the kind of honesty about our culture and circumstances that few are willing to risk. It's a call to climb down the ladder, rather than up; to embrace the hard and holy; to sit with others in pain and sorrow without answers. This is a book that gets better page by page and the last few chapters are particularly challenging and beautiful. A must read for anyone who wants to know what the gospel actually calls us to.

The most beautifully written book I've ever read! It is poetic but accessible. It is honest and raw, full of hope and pain. It reminded me of the book of Psalms more than any other literature ever has. Highly recommend.